In her spare time, she is either building projects with her kids, playing with her dogs, sketching, traveling to experience foods & cultures or learning a new software language or tool.

~Our wonderful and exceptional friend Rashmi is spending the summer in India visiting her family, while she is there she has agreed to check out the massive Smart Cities undertaking currently taking place.

Uplink from Mumbai,India

Reporting on the massive digital endeavor underway in one of the most populous countries in the world. Postulating at a macro level, it seems the world is a product of one term – “Connectivity”.

The earliest known form of connectivity can be found in the origin of trade, as early as, 3000B.C. Trade between countries formed a backbone of connections that were traversed to exchange goods and food, thus connecting people to cultures.

A map showing the main trade routes for goods within late medieval Europe. Courtesy: Wikipedia.org

Following this, came the earliest roads of Persia and Babylon, that were adopted over the centuries into a geographical network, thus connecting people to places. The industrial

Revolution introduced a labyrinth of rail routes, which still continue to grow and connect people to manufacturing and distribution. First commercial air travel in the early 20th century, brought those connections to the skies.

The internet was the birthplace of people connecting to machines (servers) and social network applications, eventually connected people to other individuals. We are now on the impending cusp of connecting all mundane things (IoT) to the internet, ultimately creating a connection to everything (IoE). Even despite this double exponential growth in connectivity over the past fifty centuries, a country like India, that contributes 20% of the world’s population, has immense opportunities to provide basic, essential connectivity, in terms of both physical and digital infrastructures. This is being achieved every day in India, through ambitious technological and political policies, aiding the creation of building blocks, such as the U.S. social security number equivalent called “Aadhaar”(foundation). In fact, Aadhaar raises the bar on individual identification with IRIS detection technologies and creating a uniform, collaborative, technical platform for connecting various disparate central, state and independent government agencies and their programs. The core idea is to keep it minimalistic,

Provide an agile system that spurs innovation, create a central database of 1.2 billion Indian residents and provide secure, authorized interfaces to the repository. The potential of having such a system in bringing access, to connect billions up to advanced civic opportunities, such as Wi-Fi, are the first steps to faster self–‐service online marketplaces, smart applications, information and education, creating smart villages, smart cities and a smarter connected society.

The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune and Survival in the Age of Networks the new book by Joshua Cooper Ramo was presented by the author at a recent Dallas World Affairs Council event on a rainy evening in downtown Dallas. Those that braved the thunderstorms were in for a real treat. Cooper-Ramo is Vice Chairman and Co-CEO of Kissinger Associates, adviser to CEOs, Politicians and on a number of notable corporate boards. Mr. Ramo has a unique ability in recognizing patterns and relationships of seemingly disparate events and envisioning where those trends will lead us into the future.

Mr. Cooper-Ramo has spent much time in China (living as close to a national as possible –keeping company with locals and speaking fluent Mandarin). He has witnessed, firsthand the ascension of China’s economic prowess and the dynamism of that economy. His new book is a very interesting as it presents a new way of looking at the world. A world where terrorism, mass refugee migrations, unbelievable technological and medical advances and whole new industries look just like chaotic events. Mr. Cooper-Ramo draws parallels and explains what he believes is the secret to power and fortune in the coming age. That secret power lies in understanding how networks function and the part they are playing in our changing economy, our geo-political structures and societal values.

Malcom Gladwell was recently quoted “The next president needs to read the Seventh Sense, starting on the morning of November 9th. Joshua Ramo’s latest book is a fascinating guide to the way the world is changing.” The book is an important read not only for political leaders but for those of us working in Technology. The Internet of Things, Smart Cities and other Smart technologies will be part of the disruption that Cooper-Ramos discusses in his book.